The Strait Gate by Epsilon

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 6, 1883

The Strait Gate.

By Epsilon

"ENTER ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Matt. 7: 13.

This scripture should not discourage any one who is moved upon by the Holy Spirit to become a disciple (or learner) of the Lord Jesus, for the Saviour says: "All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6: 35. The great mass of the people will choose this present world and will not come to Christ. But it seems that many will seek to come to him in the wrong way; for according to Luke 13: 24, many will seek to enter in and shall not be able. By reading to verse 28 we find that many will be astonished to find themselves shut out of the kingdom.

And in Matt. 7: 22, 23 we read: "Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." There are many ways in which professed Christians work iniquity. At the present time, as in the past, many make war upon the truth when it is presented to them. In that day will not a large number of the disappointed ones be those who held with an iron grasp to their errors, and persecuted those who received the truth? These scriptures, shutting the mass of mankind out of the kingdom and saving comparatively few, would be intolerable if the doctrine of the immortality of the soul were true. But the truth is the great mass will go into destruction, and the noble few go into the strait and narrow path of life. The words destruction and life are antithetic, or opposite in meaning. EPSILON.